Our Modern Writing Ways: Good or Bad?

Is it okay that we have rules, but have no inclination to follow them?

An older man in the poetry workshop I was in could not fathom how free verse was poetry. “What about rhyme?” He’d say, frustrated at every modern poet we read.

Personally I’m a fan of free verse, but I have a high respect for the classic rhyming poems because they are incredibly hard to pull off. Rhyming is so very easy to go cheesy with.

But the lack of rhyming in poetry doesn’t concern me–I like the internal rhymes you don’t catch right away, and the music-like quality free verse can capture without abba abba cdcd.

But when you study literature you’re taught the different “eras” and the people responsible for the new developments. They took chances, went against the grain…

But like the older man I have some qualms about a few creative choices. Like, deciding to forgo punctuation…I thought that was a 60’s fad? Or using only lowercase letters. (It’s a visual thing, I got that.)

We grow up learning these writing “rules,” then we learn about how some of the greats broke them and revolutionized a mode of writing. Then we’re told that we should write what we want.

It seems we’ve gone from making creative choices and creating new genres to doing whatever we want. Mostly because it’s easier than learning.

Here’s where people get confused: You do actually need to learn the craft of writing before you’re permitted to break the rules. It’s the same in any field, really. Instead, I see the picking and choosing of technique without any real reason, or conviction behind it.

In other words, the writing falls flat.

I find a lot of people use the excuse “I write what makes me happy,” which is okay…depending on whose answer that is.

If you don’t know why you favor a writing technique I’d challenge you to think about it. One day someone may ask you why you write using stream of consciousness. This way you’ll know why you do it (and it won’t be, “Cause I like it,” or you could always make something up as long as it sounded like you know what you’re talking about, which is what I do.)

(Did that joke translate?)

If you break the rules, do it well and with reason.

What do you think, should writers be allowed to have free reign over language or should we carry the traditions of the past into the now?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, The day, and I mean the very day, that the first LEET speak novel hits the stands, I will make it my quest to hunt down every dictionary in existence and subsequently burn it! I can say this because, well, believe me, I will lol!

I do like to obey the rules, though. So, I will do it within said rules – Book-Burning Bonfire Style. 😀

Yep. Gotta learn the rules to break them. In my case, sometimes I’m just wrong. I think finding glaring errors in news articles or print are off-putting- I’d hose my work off a bit more for such. Here I often write them come back to edit all my inconsistencies in or out. It depends on how we’re using our space- as a creative leap for joy or a disciplined arabesque- both hold equal delight and fulfill different marks for beauty.

Kurt Vonnegut has a great quote, “If you want to break the rules of grammar, first learn the rules of grammar.”

Feel free to QOTD that.

I tend to be a traditionalist, but I hate rules. I don’t think anyone, writer, artist, whatever, should only stick to trails blazed by those who came before. I don’t think self-expression should follow any rules. However, one’s art will generally be more accepted if it conforms. I hate when other people break grammar rules. What was the question again? It doesn’t matter. I don’t have an answer.

On another site called “Wattpad”, I have a book titled “Chasing Wattpad”. This book is just basically series of rants about my experience on Wattpad. In that series, the single most infamous chapter was one titled “You’re Not a Poet and You Didn’t Even Know It”. It got thousands of votes and hundreds of comments. Mostly from poets who told me I was right or wrong about it all. In the chapter, I described a Free Verse Poetry as basically another way of saying “I don’t know how to write poetry.” That did not go over well. Lol. But I mostly still stand by it. Poetry does not have to rhyme. But it does have to have a rhythm and flow about it. Otherwise, it is just words. Don’t call poetry “whatever I want to write”. That cheapens poetry and poets. The poets of older times took forever to come up with the poetry that made them famous. They wrote more than 3 sentences on a page. That’s just nonsense. Now, I’m not saying that very compelling things can’t be said in a few short sentences and that those things aren’t desirable. But they aren’t poetry. Poetry should be more than that. There were great poets in older days. I have not seen any today. The old poets couldn’t spit out a poem every day. They worked hard and long on their craft. Very few do that today, and they can do it because of this made up nonsense called “free verse”. Free verse is just talking out of your butt. Do the work. Write some real poetry. Mini rant over. – Robert

I think you’ll find most writers wrote everyday but their ability to get it set in type, inked, printed, bound, delivered them purchased perhaps caused less of such to be seen. Different tastes, delivery and times. Also, haiku.

In English, there are rules that are hard and fast and there are rules that are really suggestions. And there are “rules” that are simply someone’s personal style as well as rules that we’ve stolen from other languages (that often make no sense).

That said, the rules of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and, even, grammar are relatively new inventions. I say this as a medievalist, who has read a ton of medieval English lit (Old English and Middle English), including working with handwritten 14th century manuscripts. For instance, the period (full stop) is only a few centuries old (English is . . . over twelve centuries old, for context).

Yeah, as far as grammar goes I’m not too worried. The rules I mentioned pertained more to the rules of literature and how people are taught to write. I think the rules are meant to be broken, but only intentionally.

Those “rules” tend to be more personal style than actual rules. Ursula K Le Guin had a wonderful essay about that years ago. I’ll have to look up the title, but it appears in her collection “Language of the Night”.

Totally agree! ‘Rules are there to be broken’ as the old saying goes, but you need to know what rules you’re breaking in the first place! A lot of people write what they feel like writing because they want to get something out – which is great, but if you want it to be read, you need to know where it stands! Knowing where your work fits in the world is important. I’m a real stickler for capital letters, and usually punctuation too, though I can look past its absence. For many, things like you’ve mentioned, it just come down to laziness. They don’t want to know what they’re doing in relation to others; they don’t want to learn. I think this is really sad, as it shows the writer isn’t taking it seriously. They’re also missing out on so much! How can you be inspired if you don’t know what those before you have done!

I’ve been reading Ezra Pound’s ABCs of Reading and he essentially says that there needs to be people to uphold the true definition of what writing is (or what poetry is). If we allow it to be so deluded that anything goes, we suffer as a society.

If you’re familiar with John Ruskin and his take on the Gothic Cathedral, it reminds me of that.

Great thread and topic. Someone, a poet (or critic?), I think, compared free verse to playing tennis without the net. I think the artist who attains a Federer-level of play knows exactly where the net would be and could indeed play a comparable opponent without it. I tend to think in terms of “doggerel” versus “poetry.” I write the former because I’m not good; William Carlos Williams achieved the latter in his way; so did Gerard Manley Hopkins in his. Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” shows (for me) that keying exclusively on prosody as a prerequisite for poetry is short sighted — somewhat akin to insisting that a painting can be made only with condoned media — pigments, brushes and palette knives. It ignores too many intangibles that elevate a certain sequence of words or expressive marks into something out of the ordinary.

I think that both rules and departures from them, however skilled or unskilled, become a set of intentions and practices for a writer. Some of us might be learning “departures” as rules along with traditions, resulting in a collection in mind pertaining to our personal writing voice. We give ourselves rules as we study them – even rules to break. I think you’re right about purpose and a knowledge of classic traditions. Without it, we miss out on both the exuberant fun of rebellion and the lyrical peace of acquiescence. I wish I was exposed to more rules and intend to be. That’s because I love writing with my writing voice and I want it to sing both jazz and classical. And rock. And folk. And punk. And techno. And so on.

I think a big part of the answer is in what you said about having to know the rules before you can set about breaking them. Sometimes I feel as if rules are broken in a very pretentious manner; I can break it so I will with no real regard for why I’m breaking it. Equally, I find strict rule adherents possibly even more frustrating, it’s like they missed the memo regarding this being an art form. I think if your preoccupation with art is a preoccupation with rules then you’re probably doing it wrong. You may be a great craftsman but you’re unlikely to be a great original thinker.

I keep pretty well to traditional writing structures, forms and rules although my poetry is basically free verse. Sometimes with a little rhyme too. I find the structures of the traditionalist poets quite stifling. Course, someone who is unsuccessful in writing those styles would claim they’re stifling… ‘I want that word… that word is perfect…except that word is three syllables and the stress is on the last and so… it isn’t perfect…. I’m using it anyway.’

In general I like styles which allow themselves a little license; Junot Diaz and Cormac McCarthy both ignore dialogue tags, Chuck Palahniuk writes tiny, angular, repetitive paragraphs, Hunter S Thompson uses capitals at the start of almost whichever words he damn well feels like because A) Hunter S Thompson and B) emphasis.

None of those are huge leaps from the tradition form but I think they’re all good examples of pushing the boundaries without being pretentious (Junot Diaz: Well…over pretentious).

Joseph Conrad in The Heart of Darkness uses another characters dialogue to tell the entire story. It’s not necessarily original, but I find that I love the idea of telling a story through a character that isn’t the original narrator.

But yeah I’m a fan of traditional form as well as good writing that steps out of line.

It’s interesting that you say that someone may be a great craftsman but unlikely to be a great original thinker.
Because is there really such a thing as an original thinker? And can someone really be considered a craftsman without creativity?

So this really goes into questions of art philosophy I guess. I would say there are still many original thinkers although I take your point and to a certain perspective certainly there are no more original thinkers.

I’d also say that, at least in terms of how I’m using these words, the first draft would be the artistic process while the editing and redrafting process would be the craft. Naturally both phases have elements of each.

I often feel as though rules are the reserve of the creatively truncated but maybe that’s me being an ass… I feel similarly about those who abandon all form. I guess I’m hard to please…

My views on this are always changing and adapting but for me currently, I can’t get behind the idea that there is no definition of art. It’s a very tempting position and there’s a certain romance to the idea that art is beyond definition. On the flip side; I think if we don’t define art then anything (literally anything) can be art which really reduces art to being ‘that which I call or perceive as art’ which we would understand as a useless definition in any other field. Imagine in geology; we can’t define sedimentary rock, so its whatever I say it is. I think the definition of art is hidden in Wittgenstein’s theory of meaning through relationship. His language-game theory.

I’m believer in that everything can be defined, but we as humans may never discover the definition.

My simple definition of art is the application of a creative skill through various mediums. But I think that what we’re talking about is a big “A” Art. This is the “Art” that people tend to define individually, which is how we end up with a pencil in a cup in the middle of a gallery. (With critics oohing and aahing.) And it’s art because no one is allowed to box in the idea of what art is and what art isn’t.

I believe Art, at its core has to be relational. Art is tri-part – a relationship between the artist, the art, and the observer. I also would stretch to say that true art conforms to reality (though many people believe that to be also defined individually.) whether the artist knows it or not.

For example, good abstract art, even when it looks chaotic, has order. It’s just you have to look closer to see it.

So, when I say art is seemingly indefinable I just mean I don’t believe we’ve discovered the entire definition.

This one might as well have become my favorite of yours. You had me at One Art but I had to keep reading and I really enjoy your style.
Now I am also old school when I do believe that the art of writing, one must respect some integrity gained from a deep appreciation of the craft of writing, from taking the time to choose your words with care and depth which can bring so much satisfaction when you really look for a particular word and that Eureka feeling is quite exquisite.
I tend to digress when excited about a topic so I’ll aim for short. Aim for respect of the craft of writing.
Review, edit, polish.
However… C’m’ on! One life to live. To embrace. To savour and there are ways to do justice to writing without making a mockery of the whole thing.
I want to see who I am reading, through quirks… Little ones here and there.
Bending the rules is not only okay, being writers we get to create our worlds.
Doing comedy might have sparked the rebel in me. I will not apologize for wanting to bend the rules without breaking.
Writing is fun. If you want to be like a pretentious college professor with anal retentive rules about traditional style, then fine. I am not against it but yes, opening the door without making it an open bar for people who never read a book or wrote one thing and BOOM! They believe they earned that title…. No.
What brought me to write was the crazy child I used to be and bled on paper and well, with supervision the crazy child should be allowed to go wild.
Whatever makes you feel alive, you shouldn’t try to make it fit within narrow-minded literary confinement.
I’m open to negotiations but writing should be liberating and freeing. Allow you to feel at your most alive. It does to me.
Words matter and so does learning about writing. Those who really care about writing naturally challenge themselves to learn new things.
You know what, I got carried away—Again!—I shall stop here.
By the way, very much enjoying your writing.
Great question, though. I am going to keep thinking about it.
✌ 😜

This is great! I totally agree.
I love, “opening the door without making it an open bar” (thinking I’ll steal it, too😂)
I think that statement sums up everything.
Come in and enjoy writing, but it’s not free.

Certain writing should probably follow the rules, like in haikus and tetractys because they observe a tradition of writing in a certain way. People come to expect that’s how they will be written. My primary rule is – can the reader understand it? Spelling and punctuation do matter to help convey the meaning of the words but other than that, it’s more of what is rumbling around in our heads, or? I appreciate all styles because it allows me to get to know the individual.

I remember having things like rhyme, irony, alliteration, imagery, etc. presented to me as “Tools”, and “Free Verse” was where you were still supposed to use them, but not according to a set of rules. I like the light that sheds on free verse- It’s not purely do what you want. It is like you are still following rules, just different ones than you’d be following in another form.

Twenty years ago when I was still in college, I could really contribute to this discussion…now I really have to reach far back to even remember what that English degree even did for me 🙂
When I am reading, all I care about is–does it move me? And writing–does it connect with my reader? (Please no proofreading this response!) Talk about following rules, though, look at e.e. cummings. That guy never capitalized anything 🙂
I love your thought-provoking work, Zarah, and I have really loved reading all of these comments. Thanks to all of you for making me THINK today. It’s awfully early for that here in KCMO.

I enjoy the freedom of free verse, but when I want to be taken seriously by a broader audience, the free verse isn’t really free. By that, I mean that I usually add punctuation to control the tempo and help the reader see it as it was in my mind. I have days where I do expel thoughts without regard to form or style, and free verse fits perfectly as my mind rarely thinks in structured rhyme. I see beauty in all forms of expression, and there’s a time and place for structure. For serious writers, I think one should explore all forms at least once, to understand it in nature, to learn, and have a well formed opinion of what they like or dislike about a given style.

Hey, great article, and an interesting question. I try to use as few punctuation marks as possible in my poetry because I like the ambiguity that their absence can create, as well as the additional layer of meaning can be decoded by readers when they are thoughtfully and sparsely used. Xx

I like free verse and traditional styles. Haiku & sonnets have been among the most challenging to me. Ben Jonson uses a format in “Hymne to God the Father” I like & have experimented with. Free berse is often discounted as easy but it has its own rhythms & challenges that are internal to each poem. I like your point that breaking rules just for the sake of breaking them isn’t necessarily artistic. Good post!

I’m in this poetry group and we start each meeting with a writing exercise. That’s when I wrote it, so it was really off the cuff. I was proud of my first stanza but from there it went downhill real quick. Haha, so no, I won’t be posting it 😅

I reread this and feel like if you have something to say, I mean really say, I think rules don’t necessarily have to be learned. Especially if you are going to break them anyway.

I also believe (I’m not sure how this will come across) since I write in a stream of consciousness fashion, I often feel like I’m cheating. I feel often when writing that I channel something. A higher something. Like what I write, I am only a conduit for. Know what I mean? Like the Muse narrates a movie in my head. I have written stories with zero initial direction and I just write what I hear in my mind. And the story will inevitably come full circle. It’s weird but it happens.